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Capricology: Television, Tech, and the Sacred

By Diane Winston

…complex relations with their avatar, somethings seeking photorealism, sometimes seeking to amplify their favorite aspects of themselves, and sometimes becoming someone profoundly different from who they are in everyday life. Yet here, creating an avatar is replicating oneself—perhaps because it intensifies the other thematic around creating virtual life here: the act of bringing someone back from the dead. Here, it is not so much an act of creati…

Conservative Christians Insist the Toxic Theology Portrayed in the Duggar Family Doc is ‘Fringe’ — But is it Really All That Different?

By Caroline Matas

…back for God” and to explain how his own religious views have shifted over time. In a review of the docuseries for The Gospel Coalition, Harris expressed his empathy for survivors of abuse within IBLP while also noting that he knows “people who had positive experiences with IBLP.” Harris also critiqued the filmmakers for “equating Gothard’s genuine extremism with beliefs held by the vast majority of evangelicals,” though, much like the series’ oth…

Church=State in Putin’s Orthodox Empire?; Evangelical-Orthodox Anti-Gay Alliance; Malaysian Court Protects Transwomen; Catholicism (Still) Declining in Latin America; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…dimir Putin trying to build a new Orthodox empire?” In many ways, it’s the best of times for the Russian Orthodox Church. The vast majority of Russians now identify as Orthodox—a stark change from the immediate post-Soviet period. Recent years have seen a flurry of church construction throughout the country. And perhaps most important of all, there’s a committed believer—Vladimir Putin—in the Kremlin, a man who surrounds himself with other influen…

Newsweek’s Strange Faces of the Christian Right List

By Sarah Posner

…ren’t associated with the Christian right. Ten is a pretty small number to best represent a movement Newsweek describes as “changing and growing more diffuse, even as it remains a potent force in American politics.” While some of the picks seem obvious (Marjorie Dannenfelser of the anti-choice group Susan B. Anthony List, or Jim Daly, the new head of Focus on the Family, or Robert George mastermind of the Manhattan Declaration) legal scholar Melis…

In a Powerful Statement Black Presidents and Deans Say: No More Stolen Black Lives!

By Pamela R. Lightsey

…h within a very short timeframe. Of course, statements are written all the time. I can’t count the number of statements and petitions I’ve signed over the last decade about one issue or another. This is why we knew we could not, we would not, simply offer a few words proclaiming our disgust. We wanted actionable items, matters that we could take up within our local communities and the academy. Already, we’ve followed up this statement by a discuss…

Holy Father, You’re Not Helping: The Problem with the Pope’s Plan to Consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

By Katherine Kelaidis

…cemented the divide. While the history of Western Christianity since that time has been a history of relative power and prominence, the Eastern Christian world has had a rockier ride, from Ottoman occupation to Soviet repression. Throughout all this time, it’s difficult not to notice that the West—the rich, powerful twin—has seldom missed an opportunity to leverage Eastern Christian misfortune to its own advantage. The Crusades themselves are an…

A Debate Rages in India Over Conversion, Secularism, and “Spiritual Violence”

By Murali Balaji

…Islam. Instead, it was the jizya, the tax levied on non-Muslims, that over time won the most converts, and those conversions happened across caste lines. The re-introduction of Christianity by the Portuguese to India’s west coast (where Syrian Christians had lived since the time of St. Thomas) in the 15th century did not come peacefully. The systematic destruction of Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, and even Muslim holy sites (and the erection of churches i…

Sex and the Chosen People: Be Fruitful and Multiply, Etc.

By Mandy Van Deven

…are many different streams, many different conversations happening all the time! That said, I see in the broader secular culture, often, the presumption that sexuality is an item to be bought, sold, or bartered—think of the way it’s used as a tool in advertising, or by celebrities, or in the culture of hookups found on college campuses. Judaism demands not only that we engage our heart and soul in our sexual lives, but that we be fully present wit…

Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

By Gary Laderman

…. Given this complicated and grave history, Halloween is exactly the right time of year to bring the dead to mind and consider the porous boundaries separating them from living society. How could we do otherwise, even as our children dress up playfully as Grim Reapers, undead zombies, spooky ghosts, and other hilariously adorable creatures, trick or treating as the rays of sunlight at dusk turn into the dark night under the stars and moon? So now…

The Two Faces of New Atheism

By Konstantin Petrenko

…ourse atheists remain a distrusted and despised minority, and it will take time for politicians to begin to acknowledge personal disbelief publicly, but for the first time, led by a group of articulate spokespersons, nonbelievers seem to have found their identity and public voice. This cultural development should be celebrated by all progressives, regardless of their religious affiliation or lack of belief. The Dark Side of the New Atheism But the…